The Death of Cantilevers

The recent World Cyclocross Championships may not look like a major turning point in many respects. The race was held in a safely traditionalist bastion of 'cross (Tábor, Czech Republic) and the winners were reliably from old-guard 'cross nations (excepting the Junior Men's victor, Simon Andreassen of Denmark).

But viewed another way, the race may mark a major shift: the last World Championships that saw the majority of competitors race on traditional rim brakes.

That seems counterintuitive. Three of the four winners rode discs, with U23 men's champion Michael Vanthourenhout being the only holdout. But the majority of starters still raced on cantilevers.

Riders who use discs will readily tell you that they're a superior technology. “With discs, you can hit a treacherous descent at just the right speed so you hit the rut exactly right and let it carry you around,” says Rapha-Focus's Jeremy Powers. With cantis, it's more of a crapshoot. So discs may not result in faster lap times, but their more reliable control helps eliminate mistakes and produce more consistent lap times.

Since their advent, discs have been far more readily adopted by racers in North America than those in Europe. Some of the reasons for that are straightforward, namely weight and cost.

The European circuit this year started with dry, fast courses, but as in past years, as the season progressed many events featured thick mud unnavigable on two wheels. The lengthy portages you see on courses there make riders extremely sensitive to weight, and so they tend to go with the lightest gear possible. Right now, disc systems are still heavier, although there's still a wide range of penalty that depends on setup. Different disc-specific frames and wheels can vary widely in weight.

As for cost, consider that the Telenet-Fidea team has 12 riders on its Elite and Espoir teams alone, not including the five female elite riders on the Young Telenet-Fidea team or the juniors. Cyclocross is unabashedly an equipment-centered sport. “It's a tire (tread) game,” says Alex Wassmann, team liaison for SRAM. If each Telenet rider accounts for six to ten sets of wheels, that's a significant investment in rolling stock to switch over even if they get a heavy discount. “It's so much easier with the US teams because they're smaller,” he says.

Early word on discs for 'cross was that the systems were sometimes troubled by excessive pad wear, particularly in thin, soupy mud. “With our first go-round, you would see riders completely wear down pads in a single race, which didn't happen with cantis,” says Wassmann. But Powers pointed out that technological advances: longer-wearing pads, rotors that shed mud better; and pistons with different pad travel ratios, have fixed many of the wear issues. It's worth asking: Are weight and cost really such major impediments?

Turns out, there's one more, stubborn issue to overcome: tradition. European 'cross is both an unsentimental game of numbers (specifically the zeros in a typical pro contract) and an insular, family-centric affair. “There are some really good mechanics in Europe,” says Powers. “But there are also mechanics who are the racers' dads. They started out with pretty simple stuff, and things like electronic shifting and hydraulic discs have thrown these guys for a loop.” By comparison, Powers' bikes are tuned by Tom Hopper, a former mechanic for the Garmin WorldTour team.

Mechanical skills for cyclocross racing are a little different than other disciplines. Racers have two, three, or sometimes four bikes in the pit and swap every lap, or half a lap. The emphasis is on quick swaps of clean, serviceable bikes. “The guys at, say, Vastgoedservice are really good at moving bikes into and out of the pits,” says Wassmann of young phenom Wout Van Aert's team. “But they are not well-versed in a wide spectrum of bike technology.”

“Anything really high-tech, some of these guys are in the dark,” says Stu Thorne, a longtime mechanic and founder of the Cannondale/Cyclocrossworld.com team of Tim Johnson and Ryan Trebon. “So because they don't understand it and they're afraid of it, they don't want to put it on the bikes.”

Both Thorne and Powers say they've seen drivetrains, wheels, and tires that clearly should be retired out on the racecourse; some of the mechanical mishaps you see in races may not be the parts themselves, but older, misadjusted parts quickly pushed past their limits by horrendous conditions.

But that may start to change quickly. Part of it is generational: Younger riders like World Champion Mathieu van der Poel race almost exclusively on discs in any conditions. And riders like Andreassen come from a mountain bike background, where discs are standard technology. And there's no arguing with results.

As the technology matures, mechanics may actually become part of the push for switching to discs. Wassmann says that part of his pitch is to mechanics. “Look, if you commit to discs and install them correctly, other than swapping pads and maybe rotors now and then there's actually a lot less maintenance during the season,” he says.

The last domino to fall will be the equipment. It's still an unclear path at some teams to put together a good, reasonably light disc frame and quality disc-brake wheels given all the various sponsor commitments. But wheel companies are coming around partly because bike companies are forcing it.

Both Cannondale and Focus (Powers' bike sponsor) don't make top-level canti 'cross bikes anymore. Powers raced cantis this year in Europe because, he says, he needed to make a decision on equipment last March and, at that time, felt that it would be easier to deal with cantis for parts and service in Europe. He raced exclusively on discs in US races.

The Giant bikes that World Champion Pauline Ferrand Prevot and past World Cup winner Lars van der Haar race on are also disc-only. And van der Poel raced half the season on a Colnago and half on a Stevens—both bikes were equipped with discs, and he had consistent results on both. Wassmann says that Vastgoedservice's Van Aert rode race laps on a disc bike this year and that SRAM is working with Telenet's Tom Meussen to switch over as well.

Powers thinks advances like through-axles and weight will be what brings it all together. “With a quick release, there's all this braking power at the caliper and this tiny little titanium skewer holding it there, it just won't work,” he says. “With the dual through-axles, there's so little flex. I never rub rotors anymore because the hub is locked in there. Pad compounds are getting better, the rotors are changing so you reduce pad wear. Lightness is the next step. But these are things that are coming soon, not in the super distant future. It could be as soon as next year.”

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